


she was warm (a star in my arms)

by TheLadyoftheHouse



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Appropriate Use of the Force, Ben Solo Lives, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Resurrection, Rey Nobody, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tros fix-it, but that doesn't stick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyoftheHouse/pseuds/TheLadyoftheHouse
Summary: The rocks were rough and cold beneath his sore fingertips. He tried to pull himself up the shear wall, but his arms were shaking from the strain and he lost his grip before he could even make an inch of progress. He pressed his forehead to the rock as if he could convince it to be climbed by force of will alone.Be with me.“I’m trying, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “Gods above, I’m trying…”Or, Ben Solo dragged himself out of the pit for more than this.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 22
Kudos: 176
Collections: Reylo Romance (SW canon only)





	she was warm (a star in my arms)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Killtheselights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/gifts).



It was probably a bad sign that he could taste his heartbeat, wasn’t it.

The ancient stone of the pit murmured under his bruised back, timeless and toneless and hissing in a language he couldn’t quite comprehend. 

“Kriff, can’t you just  _ shut up _ for once?” Ben growled as he struggled to get up. 

A sharp pain lanced through his right leg and up to his hip. He swore colorfully. Definitely broken. 

He flopped back onto his back, his eyes pricking against the pain of breathing; he wondered dazedly if  _ any _ of his ribs were still intact. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on the drag of blue-tinted oxygen in his lungs. His mind, usually full of voices, was markedly silent. 

Except for one voice. 

_ Rey.  _

The lightness that filled his chest at the barest thought of her was incandescent, warming, healing. She was like a bolt of lightning that had gotten caught in his broken ribs and set up house right next to his heart. She was everything. She was as natural and as necessary as breathing. 

And she was losing. 

Panic and adrenaline pierced his heart and forced him upright with a groan. He had to get to her. She wasn’t going to be alone in this, not if he could help it. 

_ Be with me,  _ murmured her voice in the Force, soft and sweet and pleading. 

He rolled onto his hands and knees with some difficulty, practically begging for breath as he staggered upright and toward the bottom of the cliff. Those three little words echoing in his head set a beat for him to move to. 

_ Be with me. _

The rocks were rough and cold beneath his sore fingertips. He tried to pull himself up the shear wall, but his arms were shaking from the strain and he lost his grip before he could even make an inch of progress. He pressed his forehead to the rock as if he could convince it to be climbed by force of will alone. 

_ Be with me.  _

“I’m trying, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “Gods above, I’m trying…”

A prolonged surge of power from the cavern above him nearly took his breath away. Darkness, thick and crackling and jagged, and Light, bright and clean and blue. The conflict between them urged him upward and this time he managed to get up the wall a few feet before he reached out to the Force to keep his path stable. He had to help Rey. He wasn’t about to let the old Emperor put his slimy hands on her. 

He could hear the lightning, hear her screaming, as wild and feral as she had been in the throne room. She was struggling. She was so close. She was so far. A thousand voices rang out in the rock and in the cavern and in his head but Ben just kept climbing. 

“Hold on, Rey,” he gasped with each foot of progress. “Just hold on…”

_ I’m coming for you, sweetheart. _

He prayed that she could hear him among the rest of the voices in her mind. His hands protested with each handhold but he kept climbing. His leg creaked beneath him but he kept pushing. His broken ribs screamed for relief but he refused to stop. With each groan and agonizing inch, Ben Solo pulled his battered body up the cliff face. 

And then the cacophony of energy stopped. 

Silenced. 

Something in him felt wrong, a terrifying hollowness in his battered chest that he didn’t dare name. Fear pushed his muscles to the brink of usefulness until…

His hand felt a corner. And open air, cold and quiet. The skin over his knuckles cracked and stung. With a massive grunt, he pulled himself up and clung to the edge, catching his breath as he surveyed the temple. 

The statues of the ancient Sith were obliterated, little more than piles of rock and rubble. The hooded court of the Emperor was returned to dust. The throne with its reaching talons was no longer recognizable as anything, let alone the seat of Palpatine’s power. 

The Sith were gone. And at the center of their destruction was a little body dressed in tatters of stained white. 

“ _ Rey _ ,” he breathed. The hollow in his chest echoed with her name. 

Arms shaking, leg protesting, Ben clambered out of the pit. He struggled to his feet, his eyes never leaving Rey. She was the only point of brightness, the only light in the room, a fallen star made woman. His heart swelled at the sight of her. 

He stumbled to her as quickly as he could, his broken leg screaming with each unsteady step. When it finally buckled under his weight, sending him crashing to his hands and knees with a grunt, he crawled. The hollowness inside him grew and grew as the distance closed between them. 

He was shaking badly when he finally pulled her into his arms. It took a moment of maneuvering to get his bad leg under him and her slight weight settled in his lap. 

She was so still, so pale, so small. Had she ever been so small? 

Her eyes, usually shifting hazel that flashed with green and amber, stared unseeing at the ceiling, reduced to lifeless gray. Her cheeks, flushed and freckled, were wan and cold under his fingers. Her lips, the same ones he had dreamed of kissing once, were turning blue. 

Ben barely swallowed the sob that built up in his throat. 

No. No, it was all wrong. She was...she was  _ Rey.  _ She was life and light and fire. This lifeless body wasn’t Rey. Not his Rey. 

Sweat and tears fell in stinging tracks down his grimy face as he looked wildly around for someone something  _ anything  _ to stop this nightmare _.  _ His chest felt tight and empty and his blood was on fire with panic. 

She was too cold. He had to get her warm again. He hugged her close to his chest to give her whatever body heat she needed to wake up, willing her silent heart to hear the pounding of his and restart. He could feel her cold lips brush against his neck, her head heavy on his shoulder. She was so still; he felt sick. 

_ Please,  _ he begged into the void between them as his tears fell in earnest.  _ Please don’t go. Don’t leave me without you. Not now that you’ve found me again...Rey...please.  _

No answer came. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, his voice thick with desperation. “I never should have let you go…”

He clutched her form tighter to him, ignoring his screaming ribs, rocking her gently as he whispered frantically into her hair. 

“Come back,” he sobbed. “Please—I’ll do better. I’ll be good. I’ll—I’ll do anything, just... _ please.” _

His fingers tangled in her hair, holding her cold cheek to his damp one. 

“I won’t—I won’t let you be alone again.  _ Please _ , Rey. Sweetheart. I—I can’t...come back... _ come back. _ ”

Her brilliant light at the end of the long darkness was gone. 

He was alone. 

The pain was so acute that he couldn’t even summon the sound to scream. There was a hole in his soul, raw and bleeding. He could barely breathe, the emptiness filling his shattered rib cage so completely that he couldn’t fill his lungs. All he could do was hold her and rock her and sob silently into her neck. 

She was gone. 

...no. 

No. 

No, he couldn’t accept that. He  _ wouldn’t.  _

Ben Solo could not exist in a galaxy where Rey did not live. 

He rested her back against his knee, his hand cradling the back of her head. Her hair was still soft between his fingers. He had to struggle not to break completely at the way her body lolled limply in his grip. He was going to fix this. He was going to do something right for a change. 

He laid his hand over her stomach, noting numbly for a moment at how his palm and fingers seemed to engulf her slender body. He stored the thought away for later, when this was nothing more than a bad dream and she was safe and warm and breathing again. 

He sat up a bit straighter, remembering to relax his shoulders, and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, fighting the shaking sobs that had wracked him before. 

_ Be with me,  _ he whispered to the stars. 

_ Be with me,  _ he whispered to the Force. 

_ Be with me,  _ he whispered to her. 

He could feel the thrumming of the Living Force in his muscles, his blood, his very bone marrow. He drew it up to the surface, coaxed it out of its hiding places. It roiled like an ocean within him and surged into Rey’s body.

It was hard and delicate work, and before long Ben could feel himself starting to slip. Just a little more. Just until she was warm again. Just let him have one more moment with her. They’d had so few. 

The darkness behind his eyelids was becoming too deep to wade through. He wasn’t strong enough to pull her all the way back and be there to catch her. A tear slipped down his cheek. 

She’d never forgive him for this. He didn’t care, as long as she lived to be angry with him. Maybe one day she’d think about him sweetly. Maybe she’d even think on him with...no, that was probably too much to hope for. That was alright. As long as she lived, he could die happy. 

He pushed further. One more moment. Just until she was warm again...just a little more...

The darkness started to turn blue at the edges. 

It started as the barest whispers of sensation. Like fingers brushing pure light against his back. Each little touch felt like a tiny jolt of vitality to his fading energy. A heavy, just barely corporeal hand landed on his right shoulder and another, delicate and more gentle, alighted on his left. 

_ We are with you,  _ they whispered into his ears. 

The heavy hand squeezed his shoulder in a once-forgotten gesture. Life flooded down his arm like warm water. 

_ Uncle...Luke?  _ Ben croaked into the Force. 

The gentlest press of lips against the crown of his head filled his skin with warmth. 

_ Mom? _

_ We are with you, Ben. You’re not alone.  _

_ You can do this, kid. Don’t give up.  _

_ We are with you.  _

_ We are with you.  _

_ We are with you.  _

The Force flowed through his body from a seemingly endless well, the stream strong and luminous as it passed between them. He might survive this. Gods and stars, he could actually survive this. But none of that mattered if she didn’t. The Force moved into her, but still, she didn’t stir in his arms. 

“ _ Please _ ,” he whispered, his voice thick. “Rey…”

A hand, solid and dry and  _ alive,  _ slipped over the one he had pressed to Rey’s abdomen. 

Hope, bright and blinding, roared to life in the split second it took Ben to open his eyes. 

And then there she was. Warm and breathing in his arms. 

And everything else fell away around them. 

Rey looked back at him with razor-sharp focus. He could feel her gaze traversing his face, her eyes gentle and vibrant with color. He could cry just from the sight of her. 

She sat up quickly, her eyes never leaving his. Slowly, like a sun peeking through clouds, a soft smile broke across her lips. Her hand floated up toward his face. He wondered if she could feel his heart pounding. 

“Ben,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question, but a confirmation. She saw him for who he truly was. She always had. 

Soft fingertips rested delicately against his cheek and his insides turned into lightning and thousands of tiny wings. She was looking at him like he was some kind of miracle. Didn’t she realize that she was the miracle, with every fluttering breath that filled her lungs and touched her chest to his? Didn’t she understand that she was everything, with every flick of her dazzling eyes across his face? Didn’t she know how much he loved her, with every beat of her perfect heart?

Ben didn’t know if he actually said any of this aloud, but she somehow must have heard him. Her hand pressed against his face, and she drew him in to kiss him, soundly and deeply. 

His soul sang and the music reached hers and then he couldn’t keep his arms from folding around her, holding her to him in an iron fast grip, even as his broken body groaned in protest. She was so soft and so warm and so beautiful where she fit against him. He never wanted to let her go, never wanted to stop kissing her, never wanted to be without her again. 

_ You never will,  _ she answered silently.  _ I’m with you. I’m here.  _

The kiss broke, too soon for his liking. But he didn’t mind as long as he could see her sweet face again. 

His face cracked into a wide and wild and delirious grin. The kind of smile that made his cheeks hurt and his eyes prick with joyful tears. He was long out of practice with smiling, but he found he couldn’t stop once he started. 

Rey was safe and alive and in his arms. What else could there ever be to smile about? 

Without even thinking, he darted in to kiss her again, cradling her face in his hands as their lips moved together, softer and sweeter than before, less frantic, more certain. The joy and contentment radiating off of Rey in the Force washed over him in waves. He felt her fingers weaving into his hair, drawing him even closer. Her cheek was soft and warm under his palm. She was alive. She was  _ alive.  _

He pulled away, soaking in the desperate little whimper that escaped her, and pressed his forehead to hers as he tried to rein in the overwhelming crush of emotion threatening to sweep him away. 

“I love you,” he croaked, his voice hoarse. Tears slipped silently down his cheeks, cutting stripes through the grime and blood left behind. He had never thought that he’d be able to utter those words to her. This simple, profound sentiment had been so far from him before, the words so intangible despite the feelings that had burned in his chest, seemingly from the moment they met.

“Rey, I—I love you...” 

Her hands came up to hold his face as he held hers. The relief and peace and light barrelling through his bloodstream were enough to make him light-headed. He felt like he could breathe again after years of suffocation.

“I love you, Ben,” she whispered in return. “Ben... _ Ben…” _

His name sounded like music on her tongue. She was transformative, magical, turning a single syllable into a racing heartbeat.

Ben dragged her impossibly closer, burying his face in the crook of her neck with a low groan. His shaking hands darted over her back and shoulders, mapping out the bones of her ribs and spine, memorizing the muscles that were warm and trembling with life again.

“I thought...I was so afraid...you were so  _ cold _ ,” he gasped through a throat choked with emotion.

Rey stroked his hair and rested her head on his shoulder as he held her.

“I’m here,” she murmured. “I’m here. I’m with you.”

Her pulse fluttered against his lips and he pressed a soft kiss there, high on the life coursing through her.

“I lost you,” he whispered. “I can’t...I can’t lose you again. Rey, I—”

“Ben,” she murmured, her voice a balm to his mind. “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

She tugged his head away from her neck and looked him in the eye, her fingers firm on his cheeks. 

“I love you. And I’m not going to let you forget it. You’re stuck with me now.”

His face split into his second smile of the day and this time it was accompanied by a laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed. It hurt, but in the best kind of way. He felt dizzy with joy and victory and love and...and…

His vision was starting to tunnel. He couldn’t seem to stop trembling. 

“Ben?” Rey’s beautiful, ashen face was right in front of him, so why did she sound so far away…

“R...Rey…” he croaked, swaying where he sat. 

He knew somewhere in his hazy mind that she was clutching his fingers in a death grip, but he couldn’t feel the pressure anymore. 

Something was wrong. 

Was he dying?

“Ben...no...don't leave...please…” Her sweet voice, choked and frightened, was miles away. He wanted to reach out, to comfort her, to hold her close, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. It was so cold all of a sudden and he was so tired…

A distant regret bloomed in his head that he hadn’t gotten the chance to love her as he truly wanted to, and now he was out of time. He couldn’t see Rey’s face anymore as blackness closed in on his eyes. 

He fell. 

“ _ BEN!” _

Rey exhaled deeply, letting her eyes trace the domed structure that was foreign and yet somehow still familiar in her mind. This whole trip to the Skywalker homeworld had felt like a strange homecoming from the moment of its undertaking. Perhaps all deserts were fundamentally the same; lonely, dry, haunted. Perhaps she would always feel like a grain of Jakku’s sand was still in her boots. But she knew instinctively that this wasn’t a homecoming for her. She had already had hers. 

The sands of Tatooine whispered through the shifting desert wind. The Lars homestead had been vacant and abandoned for gods know how many years. And yet it still throbbed with the vestigial memories of its former residents, all long since turned to dust by now. Most of the vaporators had all practically corroded into little more than red smears in the sandstone, and those that hadn’t had already been stripped for parts or stolen outright. 

It felt important, in a way, to come back to where it all began. 

The groan and shuffle of a beast of burden and its master broke her reverie. 

“There's been no one for so long,” the old woman said. “Who are you?”

The weight of twin sabers filled Rey’s hands and a soft, blue-tinted breeze rustled the loose hair around her face and shoulders. A caress that felt like acceptance and peace. 

A small, knowing smile graced the young woman’s face. 

“Nobody,” Rey said simply. “Just passing through.”

The binary suns were setting, coloring the desert in shades of violet and gold and orange. She smiled into the fading light and made her way back to the old house. 

She slid down the little dune that had piled up in the courtyard and the smile widened at the childhood memory that followed her down the slope. She could hear BB-8 chirping indignantly in the old workshop. 

“Well forgive my assumption...pass me that wrench? No, not that one. Next to it. Thanks.”

She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the low rumble of Ben’s voice, the way it seemed to reverberate through everything around him. His broad back was to her, hunched over the workbench with complete focus. 

Rey slipped her arms around his shoulders, notching her chin into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He paused long enough to smile back at her and brush a quick kiss against the side of her nose. 

“How’s it going?” she asked. 

He made a noncommittal noise that reminded her of Han and held up a rough fabrication of metal, a familiar hilt with two emission ports below the main one. 

“I thought I’d give this design another shot,” he said pensively, his voice quiet. “I don’t want to forget what destruction a weapon like this is capable of. What  _ I  _ am capable of.”

Rey squeezed him gently and pressed her lips to his cheek, encouraging and comforting. 

“But I hope…” It was a feeling he was still getting used to, hope. “I hope that this version will be better than the first.”

“A second chance,” she murmured. 

He set the hilt down on the bench and twisted in his seat, looping his arms around her hips. Her breath stuttered in her chest as he looked up at her, his face open and eyes dark and intent. 

“I was given a second chance. I’m not going to waste it,” he vowed, and she felt the tenacity of his promise in her soul. “I'm not going to waste another moment with you.”

She leaned down and kissed him softly, her fingertips lighting on his cheeks. His lips moved against hers, sweet and tender and full of the love he was just learning how to express. His arms tightened around her, warm and solid, and she melted into his embrace. 

When they finally broke apart, Ben leaned forward, resting his ear against her heart and sighing deeply. 

“This is my favorite sound in the universe,” he whispered. 

Rey’s eyes pricked and she stroked her fingers through his hair as he rested there, over her heart and in it, in perfect stillness. The bond between them shimmered and thrummed like a plucked spiderweb. After a long, silent moment and a quiet shudder of a breath, he pressed a lingering kiss between her breasts and pulled back to look up at her again. 

She took his face between her hands and stared down at him, her eyes glittering with something fierce. 

“You are Ben Solo,” she murmured. 

He nodded. “I am.”

“You are mine as I am yours.” The statement was simple but heavy. 

“Always _ , _ ” he said solemnly. 

“...you love me,” she whispered, almost shy. 

“I do,” he said, putting the full force of his feelings behind the words. “With all that I am.”

She rested her forehead against his, her heart skipping and tumbling with joy. “And I love you.”

His soft laugh gusted against her lips. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to hearing that…”

She laughed and stepped back, offering her hand to help him up. The heavy brace on his leg creaked as he rose with a groan. It would take a while longer for the broken bones to heal, but he was well on his way. 

They were both on their way to healing. 

She slipped her hand into his and squeezed his fingers. 

“Where should we go next?” she asked. 

He smiled down at her, and she could barely contain her happiness at the sight. 

“Wherever you go, I will follow.”

“Even to the end of the galaxy?”

Ben tugged Rey to him and wrapped her in his arms, marveling at the rightness of the embrace. He never had to let her go again, his star, his sun, his radiant love. 

“And back again.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic on Christmas Eve, about four days after TROS broke my heart. For me, this was both an act of catharsis and an act of outright rebellion. Part of me wanted to keep this to myself, worried about oversaturating an already burgeoning sub-genre of Reylo fiction. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is no such thing as oversaturation in this case. Since December, we as a community have created hundreds of pieces of transformative fiction, created our own canon, and rewritten death itself. 
> 
> TROS is just one story. 
> 
> We have thousands of happy endings in our hearts.
> 
> Write what you want to read. Have your happy ending. Defy every cynical narrative.


End file.
